How to auto-rig and animate a 3D character with AI

To auto-rig and animate a 3D character with AI, give the rigger a model, let it place a skeleton with the bone names your engine expects, then put a motion on that skeleton from a preset library or a text prompt and export the result. In Ludo.ai's 3D Asset Generator that is the Rig & Animate mode: pick a model you generated or upload your own (GLB, FBX, OBJ and eight other formats), choose a rig type (General for any shape, Humanoid, or Humanoid with fingers) and a naming convention (SMPL, Mixamo, HumanIK, Unreal, Godot, Rigify or VRoid), and the rig is done in about a minute. Then retarget one of 640+ preset motions onto the rig, whatever its type, or describe the motion in a prompt, add the takes you keep to the file, and download one GLB with the mesh, textures, skeleton and every embedded clip inside.

Last updated November 2026

1. 1Pick the model to rig

   Open the 3D Asset Generator and pick Rig & Animate in the Generation Mode menu, or click Rig on any generated model card. The picker lists the 3D assets in your favorites that have a mesh; Upload 3D Model takes your own file in GLB, GLTF, OBJ, PLY, STL, OFF, FBX, 3DS, DAE, CTM or X3D. No T-pose is required, and the model does not have to be humanoid.

2. 2Choose the rig type

   General is the default: it rigs any type of asset and lets the model choose a skeleton that suits the shape. Humanoid pins a complete humanoid skeleton with named joints and no finger bones; Humanoid with fingers adds the finger joints. Any of the three can take a preset from the library; the two Humanoid types are for complete two-armed, two-legged characters. Over the API and MCP server the same choices are general, humanoid, game, humanoid_template (22 joints) and humanoid_template_hands (52 joints, five fingers per hand).

3. 3Name the bones for your engine

   Set the bone naming convention before you rig: SMPL (default), Mixamo (Unity auto-mapper), HumanIK (Maya / FBX), Unreal (UE mannequin), Godot (humanoid profile), Rigify (Blender) or VRoid / VRM. It is purely a relabel. The skeleton is identical whichever you pick; what changes is whether your engine's humanoid mapper recognises the bones on its own or you map them by hand. Choose for the pipeline you are shipping in, because changing it later means rigging again.

4. 4Run the rig

   Start the rig and give it about a minute. The geometry is untouched, but the rig replaces any skeleton the file already had: a model that arrived rigged comes back with the new skeleton and the new names. When it finishes, turn on the skeleton overlay in the viewer and drag a few joints. If an elbow bends where an elbow should, the rig found what you expected; if it does not, fix that now, before you animate.

5. 5Animate from a preset

   Open Rig & Animate on the rigged model and stay on the From Preset tab. Browse the 640+ motions, pick one, and Ludo retargets it onto your character's skeleton, whatever its rig type. Retargeting does not succeed on every model; when it cannot, the run returns an error instead of a clip. Each retarget returns one clip. The motion itself is fixed; only its fit to your character changes, so a preset is the predictable route when you know the move you want. Crop loop and In place default to Auto (recommended): cyclic motions such as a walk or an idle are trimmed to the part that loops, one-shots such as a jump keep their full arc, and travel is removed from looping clips so the character moves on the spot, which is the treadmill clip an engine expects when it drives locomotion itself. Either can be forced to Yes or No.

6. 6Or animate from a prompt

   Switch to the From Prompt tab and describe one short motion, under a second long, such as "waving hello" or "idling". Ludo generates 4 candidate takes per run. Choose Full motion (rotation + translation) to keep the character's travel in the clip, or Rotation only when the engine will move the character itself and you only want the limbs to animate. Return to initial pose plays the motion forward and then back to the rest pose, which is handy for a one-shot that has to end where it began. The tab is marked experimental in the app, and that is fair: quality varies from model to model, so plan on a few runs before a take is right.

7. 7Preview and add the takes you keep

   Every result lands in the Generations list and plays on your character in the viewer. Adding a clip with the + button is what makes it part of the asset: only clips in Embedded Animations are baked into the download. The minus button takes an embedded clip back out without regenerating anything, while delete removes a clip permanently.

8. 8Download one GLB with the rig and clips inside

   Download the model as GLB. One file carries the mesh, its PBR textures, the skeleton and every embedded clip as a named animation track. OBJ, STL, PLY and OFF are also offered, but they are static geometry only: no textures, no skeleton, no animation. The engine import guide covers what Godot, Unity, Blender and Unreal each do with the GLB.